Topics on my particular interests.
From this article: […] This is why one of the great contributions of science fiction is its ability to create monsters and technologies from the ether. When they show up out of nowhere, they challenge us to think more broadly and to make new connections. […] That’s one of the things — maybe the main thing …
Continue reading ‘“Locating Change: Science and Technology Controversies”’ »
Twenty years ago, headlines like this one wouldn’t have even been imaginable.
This sounds like something directly out of science fiction, to me.
The character of Darth Vader, in the original Star Wars trilogy, has long been known to be a fusion of two people: bodybuilder David Prowse for (of course) the body, and the now-iconic James Earl Jones for the voice. But apparently there was a secret third component to this armored villain: sword-master and Hollywood fencing …
Continue reading ‘“Darth Vader dies peacefully in hospital”’ »
That’s not data models, it’s women who model clothing. 🙂 There was a near-future SF novel I read many years ago (I don’t recall which one) that posited that actors would be replaced almost entirely by computer-generated models. We’re already seeing the precursors of it — all the Pixar releases, for instance. And characters in …
Continue reading ‘“H&M Under Fire for Using Fake, Computer-Generated Models”’ »
“…it’s worth doing badly first.” It’s a good idea to keep in mind, especially if (like me) you have a tendency toward perfectionism.
I have no doubt that it will — but in five years? That seems more than a little overly optimistic. I’d love to be proven wrong though. Oddly enough, this sort of thing rarely appears in science fiction, at least the SF I know of. When people in SF literature deal with computers, it’s almost …
Continue reading ‘“IBM: Mind-Reading Machines Will Change Our Lives”’ »
Wow… it seems that hacking, and hacker pranks, got their start well before the first computers were created. I can’t imagine how Marconi could have thought any clear-text wireless signal was secure against eavesdroppers. Even if his patented tuning system worked to keep the signal on a very narrow band, all it would take to …
Continue reading ‘“Dot-dash-diss: The gentleman hacker’s 1903 lulz”’ »
I’ve often said on this blog that if the governments of the world had realized the power that the Internet would give to their people, they would have quietly strangled it in its cradle. Apparently the wish for retroactive infanticide extends to large corporations as well, which makes sense.
When I saw the TV ads for the movie 30 Minutes or Less, I thought the plot was interesting but pretty unworkable. A few days ago, I discovered that the basic plot was lifted from real life, nearly verbatim (though the people involved in the movie apparently deny knowing of it). Another case where reality …
Continue reading ‘“The Incredible True Story of the Collar Bomb Heist”’ »